Storage clusters generally include storage controller computing devices and storage servers with storage volumes, among other devices. The storage controller computing devices can host storage virtual machines which are visible to and accessible by many or all of the storage controller computing devices in a storage cluster. The storage virtual machines execute applications that manage the storage of data on, and retrieval of data from, the volumes hosted by the storage servers in the storage cluster. Each of the storage virtual machines can be managed by a storage virtual machine administrator and the cluster as a whole can be managed by a cluster administrator.
Each of the storage virtual machines operates according to a plurality of configuration settings established by a storage virtual machine administrator and/or an administrator of the storage cluster in which the storage virtual machine resides. The configuration settings can establish administrator and other users for a storage virtual machine, volume and/or network operations a storage virtual machine is capable of performing, and/or DNS and/or CIFS/NFS configurations for a storage virtual machine, for example.
Often configuration settings for a storage virtual machine are changed by configuration change operations submitted by an administrator (e.g., the storage virtual machine administrator) or a third party tool, without the knowledge or authorization of another administrator (e.g., the cluster administrator) or user, which can introduce unpredictability in the operation of the storage virtual machine. Additionally, snapshots of the configuration settings for a storage virtual machine are often captured, such as to create a backup for purposes of disaster recover for example. However, configuration change operations submitted during the capture of a snapshot of the configurations settings for a storage virtual machine can result in inaccuracies in the snapshot, which is undesirable.